This may be the weekend Canadians make up their minds

This election may well be decided around the family dinner table over Thanksgiving. It wouldn’t be the first time a family holiday gathering ended up settling an election in this country.

The 2005-06 campaign broke to the Conservatives over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, especially over the family réveillon in Quebec. There, voters decided they’d had it up to here with the Liberals and the sponsorship scandal. They gave the Conservatives 20 per cent of the vote and 10 seats, while in 2004 they had won exactly zero.

In 2008, the election was the day after Thanksgiving. In Quebec, where the Conservative campaign cratered in the early going under a Bloc Québécois barrage against cuts to cultural programs, the Conservatives regained momentum over the final days and the long weekend before the election, to retain their 10 seats with nearly 22 per cent of the vote in a strengthened minority government.

In 2011, the emerging Conservative majority solidified over the Easter Weekend, a week before the May 2 election. This was especially true in the 905 suburban belt around Toronto, where the Conservatives won 21 out of 22 seats as voters delivered Stephen Harper’s “strong, national, Conservative majority government”.

As it happens, with the Conservatives’ fixed election dates, future elections after a majority Parliament will be held on the third Monday in October, a week after Thanksgiving.

What will the family conversation be like this Thanksgiving weekend? As it happens, advance polling stations are open for the entire long weekend, so people can argue about it around the table, then go to the polls as a family. It sure beats waiting in long lines after work on election day.

In Quebec, the election has been hijacked by the niqab, and the question is whether that discussion is petering out or will still be driving votes up to election day. Never has identity politics, not to mention a piece of clothing, played such a polarizing role in a Canadian election campaign.

The slippage of ‘change voters’ from the NDP to the Liberals has in recent days become a slide. And while it’s far from clear that the Liberals will win the election, they have already won the campaign.

Largely because of Tom Mulcair’s support for a woman’s right to wear a niqab during a citizenship ceremony (after first unveiling in private), the NDP’s support in Quebec has plunged from the 45 to a 25-30 per cent range in only two weeks. That’s called a freefall.

The principal beneficiaries have been the Conservatives, who have seen their numbers in the EKOS poll rise from the mid-teens to the mid-20s in Quebec. If those numbers were to hold until election day, the Conservatives could win 20 seats in Quebec, where only two weeks ago they would have been fortunate to retain the five they held going into the election. Most of those seats are in the 418 region in around Quebec City, and every Conservative gain there would be a loss for the NDP.

The niqab has also put Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc back in the game, especially after the two French-language debates. As objectionable as the Bloc’s animated attack ad is, it has been extremely effective. It has also benefited the Conservatives by doing their dirty work for them, while Harper has staked out a higher ground by stating that when you join the Canadian “family”, you show yourself. He also added fuel to the fire this week when, in an interview with the CBC’s Rosemary Barton, he mused about a niqab ban in the public service.

The Liberals have benefited in reverse among more tolerant and diverse voters in the Greater Montreal Region, the island and suburban north and south shore, areas 514 and 450.

But the main driver of the Liberals’ jump from a distant third to a tie for first place in Quebec is that they are winning on the ballot question of change, and who best represents it. It’s the same reason they’ve moved to a lead over the Conservatives in Ontario, with the NDP basically out of the race in the vote-rich GTA, with 54 seats.

The slippage of “change voters” from the NDP to the Liberals has in recent days become a slide. And while it’s far from clear that the Liberals will win the election, they have already won the campaign, moving from third place at the outset to a statistical tie for first with the Conservatives in Friday’s EKOS poll. “It’s an incredibly tight race,” says EKOS president Frank Graves. “The election has shifted from the economy to values, and the slumbering moderate majority may be engaging.” In Quebec, EKOS has the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP all tied, within the margin of error, at 25 per cent. Amazing.

There’s never been a race quite like this one, and the question for Mulcair and the NDP is how they can get back into it. The answer is very simple. Mulcair must campaign as if his political life depends on it — because it does. If the NDP should finish third after having started in first, Mulcair’s future will be behind him.

There have been signs of life in the last few days. On Thursday, in the media Q&A part of a town hall in Toronto, Mulcair’s eyes were blazing as he slammed Harper on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, and noted the opposition of Hillary Clinton to it in the U.S. presidential race as the common ground of Canadian and American progressives. It was his best moment of the campaign and marked the return of Angry Tom — this time angry on behalf of people, rather than simply angry at his opponents. Angry Tom is also authentic and known to voters, while Happy Tom was a weird guy with a smile pasted on his face.

Mulcair had another good day Friday with the launch of the NDP platform at the Palais des congrès in Montreal. It was another town hall and he was fired up. He followed it by going off to vote in the advance poll in his riding of Outremont, then by a photo op at Schwartz’s famous deli on the St. Lawrence Main in Montreal.

If you asked the NDP if they’d settle for second place in a minority House, they’d take it in a heartbeat. This is now entirely about saving the furniture — holding on to Stornoway.

L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy, the bi-monthly magazine of Canadian politics and public policy. He is the author of five books. He served as chief speechwriter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1985-88, and later as head of the public affairs division of the Canadian Embassy in Washington from 1992-94.The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.